May 19, 2016 at 11:54AM

Our most recent visitor, Olivia Ridge (@olivea.m) took this photo of us eating our Clif Bars on Cliff Lake! @Clifbar is one of the many companies that have donated food and equipment to help us in our efforts to @savetheBWCA. Olivia was our support person when we paddled and sailed from Ely to Washington D.C. with a canoe covered in signatures during the fall of 2014 to raise awareness about the threats that Twin Metals and other sulfide-ore copper mines being proposed along the southern edge of the Wilderness bring to the Boundary Waters and the region. A Year in the Wilderness is a continuation of our efforts to ensure that the Wilderness remains protected from sulfide-ore copper mining and other threats for generations to come.

Olivia spent over 100 days living out of an old suburban as she shadowed us and supported us in a wide range of ways from organizing media events and presentations to buying us groceries and finding places for us to stay. She is now going to school in Montreal, but she has returned to the north woods for a few weeks to visit and it has been a real pleasure getting to catch up.
Yesterday she was helping us clear downed trees and alders on the portage trail into Davis Lake. She is a woman with many talents! While we are still finding a fair number of downed trees and alder on the lesser used portage trails we have seen two groups of Wilderness Rangers who are busy clearing the trails. They are obviously working hard and it seems like most of the main travel routes have already been cleared, which is pretty amazing. Seeing the state of the portages in the spring makes us really appreciate all of the hard work that the Wilderness Rangers do to maintain the portages and campsites.

#wildernessyear #savetheBWCA #onlyinMN #captureMN #BoundaryWaters #minnesota #BWCA #clifbar #wilderness #canoe #snack